Don't you die on me too, Zach Zacata. The thought ricocheted through Lauren Westover's mind in tandem with the spotlights flashing across the stage.

Lauren ran across the auditorium toward Zach, straight into a time warp of memories that pushed Zach as far away as the galaxy of stars racing across the video screen behind him.

...The intensity in his laser blue eyes the first day they met. The crisp softness of the hair dusting his chest the first time they made love. The devastating pain in her soul when he left her the first time...

Matt reached Zach before Lauren did. Somber-faced, totally focused on the task at hand, as he had been when Lauren left him at the door of his first grade classroom a dozen years ago. When had her little boy become a man?

Matt worked quickly, loosening Zach's shirt with sure fingers, leaning over his chest, checking the pulse beating at his throat. "Give me some space."

The other band members stepped back as Matt eased Zach down onto the floor. "Roll up that jacket and tuck it under his knees."

The down-filled jacket smelled like the crisp, new snow that had fallen last night as Lauren and Zach walked along the river. Her first night in Idaho in a very long time.

"Is he alright?" Lauren's voice reflected none of the panic threatening to explode in her chest.

"His heartbeat is a little erratic and his breathing is slightly shallow." Matt continued to monitor the pulse at Zach's neck.

"Should we call an ambulance?"

The question reminded Lauren that others were in the rehearsal hall. Slowly, her vision focused on an elfin woman-child with spiky white-blonde hair and a metal loop piercing her navel. The young woman rubbed her arms in a hug, the gooseflesh obvious beneath the cropped and spangled top she wore over a silver metallic mini-skirt.

A practical question, but ambulances meant death, and Lauren wasn't ready for Zach to die. "Everybody take five while we see what's going on."

A murmur of comments arose from the semi-circle of band members gathered around Zach.

"Damned inconvenient." A scowl settled on the pretty face of the lead singer as he grabbed a pack of cigarettes. "We're booked to record in L.A. in two days." He hooked a cigarette into the corner of his mouth and stomped out of the room.

Lauren didn't wait to see what the other band members did. She turned her attention back to Zach, longing to see his crooked grin kick up on one side of his mouth as mischief sparked in his eyes. She didn't know what to do with this pale, still man lying on the floor.

"Why don't you bring a glass of water?" Matt met Lauren's gaze as a moment of shared sorrow and loss stretched between them. "Zach will be fine, Mom."

Would he really? Or did Matt simply know that's what Lauren needed to hear?

Lauren rose and hurried to the bathroom next to Zach's private recording studio. She filled a glass with water, staring at the woman in the mirror.

A lifetime of preparing for beauty pageants ensured that none of the fear clenching her belly reflected in her blue eyes. None of the helplessness turning her limbs to jelly sagged along the oval of her jaw line.

Never show the world what you're really feeling, her daddy had advised. Yet that stiff upper lip came at the emotional cost of not letting anyone close enough to love her.

Water splashed over the rim of the glass and onto the mauve silk of Lauren's blouse. She stared at the stain spreading across the fabric, as her husband's blood had done three short years ago. Lauren shivered. Zach would be fine.

As the door to the rehearsal hall swooshed closed behind Lauren, Zach looked up from where he was sitting at a console built to resemble the command center of a starship.

The crooked grin he aimed at Lauren wavered a bit as he accepted the glass of water she held out to him. "Ah, thanks, cherí. I am a little thirsty."

Matt just smiled slightly and settled onto a stool with his guitar. Within seconds, he was immersed in the music drifting in perfect tune from the old instrument.

"The kid really is talented, you know," Zach said.

Lauren stared at Zach. Was she imagining the exhaustion shadowing his eyes and deepening the lines around his mouth? "Yes, I know."

With Zach's arm over Lauren's shoulders, they walked through the glass-walled corridor that connected the rehearsal hall and auditorium to Zach's main house. Questions continued to tumble through Lauren's mind. Doubts and fears that she didn't express, lest giving them voice would lend them power.

A flurry of snowflakes blew against the floor to ceiling windows, making Lauren glad she had purchased warmer clothing for the weather in the Idaho mountains. Yet the thought of traveling to sunny Los Angeles in two days brought a chill no amount of warm clothing could dispel.

Friday, August 16, 2019

My first published book, THE ROCK STAR, was written and rewritten and edited and stripped down to the main characters and rewritten from nearly the ground up at least six times. At each major aha! writing realization--usually at a conference--this book would receive major editing surgery.

Finally, the edits weren't so dramatic. Just a few words here and there or rearranging dialogue. My book baby was ready to meet the world. But the "world" at that time consisted of six major New York publishing houses flooded with thousands of hopeful book babies looking for a home. Mine came close, but no sale!

Then ebook publishers began cropping up, hungry for new material to offer readers looking for alternatives to what the handful of New York publishers offered. One of those publishers offered a contract for THE ROCK STAR, and a published book was born!

Spotlights flashed in rainbows across the stage. Red. Green. Blue. Crisscrossing until they merged into one white-hot light on Geoff Chastain’s face, evoking memories of other times. The screams of thousands of teenaged girls washed through his memory as he pulled the microphone from its stand.

The first notes of his daughter's favorite song filled the auditorium and his breath caught, jagged, in his chest. Pain pulsed through Geoff's heart with each beat of the drum. He nearly dropped to his knees, longing to crawl back into the self-imposed exile where he had existed since his daughter died.

The faces of the kids in wheelchairs looked up at him with bright expectation. The whispers of the singers waiting in the stage wings curled around him in concern.

Daddy, promise you won’t let the music die. His daughter’s last request haunted Geoff. He never suspected life would become so desolate he would forget to eat and sleep, let alone lose touch with the music that had always flowed so easily from his soul.

A singer moved from the wings to stand beside him. Her presence drifted around him in silent encouragement. Her sweet contralto coaxed him to sing with her.

Focus, he ordered his brain, staring at the woman. Waves of auburn hair framed her face, then tumbled halfway down a lush body barely covered in spandex and sequins. A woman designed to stir a man to action.

Geoff's voice rasped with disuse on the first verse; the woman's harmony covered it. As he started the second verse, an image of his daughter swam before his eyes and Geoff's throat closed. The woman picked up the melody without missing a beat, as if they had planned this duet.

He grasped at her hand and drew a deep breath. Her soft scent filled his nostrils, drawing his attention away from the pain. Giving him the strength to dig deep inside where the music had lain in silent mourning.

Geoff's voice mingled with hers on the chorus, then soared as he soloed the third verse. Their voices chased each other through the final refrain, then their eyes met and held on the last triumphant note. Awed silence hung for a moment before applause erupted and the crowd was in motion.

A sea of well-wishers swarmed onto the stage. Not the frenzied near-riots of years ago, but the exuberant cheer of celebration. Smiles and congratulations wrapped warmly around Geoff as men pumped his hand and women kissed his cheek.

But the mysterious auburn-haired woman who saved his musical butt had disappeared.